Winnie Saves Albert's Life

I've just been cooking liver and onions in the kitchen when Winnie steamrollered through from the living room and bolted out of the back door.
She bounced up the garden steps like a baby hippo and disappeared from view but started to bark, her high pitched baby voice bark down by the garden gate.
I wiped my hands and was just about to follow her up, when she thundered back into the kitchen, gave me a short hard stare then bounced into the garden again.
Bulldogs seldom hurry so I lumbered after her.
Beyond the garden gate in the rough grass behind the cottage I could hear Albert retching, and I could just see him heaving his head up and down.
Immediately I thought poison , so I galloped up and scooped him up, but it was in fact evident that he had something stuck in his throat.
I squeezed him very hard, so hard that his eyes popped and swung his head down and out flopped this!

The friggin back end of a baby mouse

Fucking idiot

These animals will be the death of me

Raffle Tickets

For the last 43 years Auntie Gladys has proved herself to be a small Welsh white haired little dynamo when it came to selling The Flower Show raffle tickets. Single Handed, around the small circle of villages that surround Trelawnyd she would march around knocking on doors with her sing song " hello" and within a matter of days would be responsible for selling 500 books without batting an eye.
Nowadays , only a few years shy of her hundredth birthday she doesn't quite have the reserves that she used to, so  the flower show committee had to take the drastic decision to limit the way "we "sell tickets and to reduce the number that we offer. that decision was governed by the fact that Gladys is now too frail to be marching house to house with a bin bag of tickets in hand.
Now, she's a wily old bird is our Gladys and only a couple of weeks ago , I caught her in Rhodfa Arthur shakily selling tickets for the forthcoming Male Voice Choir  concert., so I have made the clear decision that we will only sell tickets on the day of the show.
No tickets are to be passed into Glady's eager hands!

Having said this , because it is such a thankless job, as I go around the village giving schedules away and touting for entries in the best garden competition, I have been taking the opportunity to sell extra tickets before we open the doors.
I don't know just how Gladys sold 500-600....I was out for an hour and a half yesterday and sold only 56!

Its all go in Trelawnyd

Mind you....after giving an offer of help to the family at the still house, who are organising the folk weekend at the Village Hall...I did come home with a bottle of vintage beer

The International Entries for the Novelty Veg are still coming in.......but we need more...last year we had 68 entries...so far this year I have around 25...so please get your ideas down on film...... We need at least 60 to decorate the hall properly!

 

Beach Holidays

For the first time in a few years we have organised a beach holiday. Well to be perfectly precise we will be having TWO breaks by the sea!

The first break is a few days here

And the next is ten days here!

Yes the two places look rather similar.....only the first is in Broadstairs in Kent ...and the second is in Manly in SYDNEY AUSTRALIA!  How good is that!
The break will do us both good.
The Prof is working in Australia in August then will join his best  friend and colleague for a weeks sailing ( I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than be seen dead on a small sailing yacht in the middle of the Pacific ( I've seen Dead Calm!) he will then fly to Sydney and meet me as I fly in from the UK
Now you know just why I am trying to shift all that ugly flab at fat club now!
I want to be able to sit on a beach without looking like Demis Roussos.

As usual, at holiday time it is the animals and  more importantly their care which is the knotty problem.....but I think I have just about sorted it all out. The neighbours have promised to watch over Albert and will sort out the water requirements for the field animals . Village boffin Cameron will be
in charge of the birds and William is set for a stink in our local kennels.
Winnie is going to the home of one of my fellow Samaritans who is a bulldog fanatic and George will have a holiday break at my sister's house with her dogs.

Broadstairs and Sydney how fantastic is that!

I Find Your Love

It would be fair to say that it's not been the easiest of 24 hours.
Yesterday, another trip to the vets ( this time with the ever smiling William) proved to be a little to soon for comfort and last night's stint at Samaritans  turned out to be surprisingly busy.
This morning I was unexpectedly slapped very hard on the back of the head by a boy with learning difficulties as I entered the petrol station shop and followed this sweet moment with a fraught trip to the council recycling centre where two very unhelpful workmen refused to even raise an eyebrow to help me unload a berlingo full of crap from out of the shed!

William post injections

Yes by mid morning, I was in dire need of a " zen" like moment.
I found it thanks to radio 2...which was a surprise,
For exactly at 11.29 am , as I parked outside Marks & Spencers the radio station paused for a minutes silence in memory of the casualties of the 7/7 bombings.
I sat in the berlingo for the duration and found myself listening to this specially chosen song which followed

I have never heard it before, but I can see perfectly well why the radio producers had picked it for such an emotive moment. It's a lovely song.
As it finished I opened the car and caught the eye of a woman who was exiting her car in the next space. Her face was a bit blotchy but she was smiling. " I was listening to radio 2 too " she said wiping away a tear!

Ok .....lets lift the mood
Here is the latest international entriesto the Trelawnyd Novelty Vegetable Competition

Keep em coming!

To

jgsheffield@hotmail.com

A Shadow

It's been a week since Meg left us and I have tried to be busy. I have smiled and nodded at the kind words of the villagers when they have noticed I am now down to three dogs, and I have agreed with the platitudes that putting her down was "the right thing to do" 

I have gone to work, laughed and joked with family and friends, blogged, gardened, completed jobs and gone up a gear with the Flower Show prep but yesterday evening, with the Prof away, and with the other animals all in their own corners, chairs and hearth rugs, I suddenly felt the physical " pang" of loss when I realised that Meg wasn't lying in her normal position in the crook of my arm.

And boy did it sting.

Dogs often associate themselves with one owner and Meg was my shadow for a decade. At night she would always ensure that she slept between the Prof and I, and always made sure that she faced me with her head on my chest or her paws around my arm. During the day she was always just a step away from any of my activities. a worried look upon her face and she was only truly relaxed when she was physically touching me, a fact when I look back on it, that had its own huge responsibilities and demands.

I now miss that touch. 

The above photo is a genuine one. It wasnt staged or planned, it just happened quite naturally and it perfectly illustrates Meg's constant need to be close. She and I were fast asleep after a busy night shift.

Yeap, ten years is a long time to have a shadow.

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To finish, here are a few more entries to the Novelty Veg competition 

Enjoy....

" whoopping My Arse!"

Terry in happier days...with his winning quiche a few years back!

Apparently Terry Malthoff  is going to " whop My arse in the Flower Show this year"  or so the village gossip goes.
His stinging defeat against me in two of last year's categories has provoked a healthy need for him to win this year and we are both entering the Novelty Vegetable , quiche Boiled fruit Cake and loaf of bread classes . Our jousting was born a few years back when I accused of him using furniture polish on his award winning courgettes ( the accusation stung but I was wasn't the only one who was convinced that they could smell " Mr Sheen" over the vegetable exhibit table!)
I saw Terry this morning as he was off to put up our official Flower Show signs. He squinted at me with his best Clint Eastwood eyes.........
" Bring it on" I muttered at him under my breath.

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I do need some more novelty veg pictures please

They can be as simple as this entry

A potato clanger!

All entries to jgsheffield@hotmail.com

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and finally speaking of arses

Winnie's " Underpants of shame " have been resurrected as she finishes her season

Soft furnishings have to be protected

Have a good Sunday

Hey ho

Gobbling Binmen & A Walking Dead Avacado!

We had a lie in this morning, only waking up at the noise of the bin men " gobbling " through the field gate at an over excited Bingley.
What is it when a group of men get together ? They turn into overgrown schoolboys.

The Village Conservation Group were all out in force this morning , planting out the communal flower beds and tubs and containers outside the School and Church and will admit that The Trelawnyd Green spaces look quite professionally tended to.
I snapped a quick photo of Animal Helper Pat as she worked on the Church Flower Bed

 The only other bit of gossip I have today is that I am not the only " Walking Dead" fan in the village. The old guy with the bad tempered shih Tzu from the pensioner bungalows pointed at me rather excitedly as I passed him today. At first I thought I'd either left a long roll of toilet paper hanging out from the back of my pants but as he was pointing to my torso, I reevaluated my guess to the fact that he had noticed that my weight loss at the moment is rapidly approaching a stone and a half!
As it turned out, however, he was in fact pointing to the third best Walking Dead T shirt I was wearing ( the one with Daryl Dixon muttering " sorry Brother" before he shot Dale in the head) Apparently he is a big fan and never misses an episode.
I told him he needed a zombie T shirt in order to prove that he was indeed a mega fan.....
He said he would see if he could find one when he was next in the market!

Off to bed...working later

And to finish

The latest in the novelty veg entries

A walking dead avocado!!!!!!!!

Keep em coming

jgsheffield@hotmail.com

A Royal Night Out

Ok two old queens from Trelawnyd going to the cinema may be termed by some as A ROYAL NIGHT OUT , but I am, in fact referring to the Julian Jarrord comedy drama film, which gives a fictional  slant on the VE night out in central London by the present Queen and Princess Margaret.
Apparently the Earnest Lillibet ( Sarah Gadon) and the doe eyed innocent Margaret ( Bel Powley) team up with an RAF deserter, a group of Soho tarts and a royalist gangster with a heart of gold, as they negotiate the drunken crowds in Trafalgar square ....yeah right!
The two leads are perfectly fine with Gadon making a prim but spunky Quuen in waiting and Powley playing Margaret for laughs........but the film doesn't quite work as a piece of storytelling as the movie feels just a series of filmed set pieces rather than a smooth cohesive narrative....with some depth
5/10

Elizabeth and Margaret live it up

The new cinema needs to market itself a little better too
There were only 8 of us in the audience!
Hey ho